Faith

In cell number 8 of the prison in Pyongyang, a few frozen and emaciated prisoners had to endure an additional torture: the pungent smell and wild screams of an untamed creature.

"Even if you're imprisoned for life, that's still a short time. After that, Jesus will come back. All you have to do is try to make the best of the situation you're in' (Lindy Chamberlain). 

The sermons. My mother’s stories. The little sand table and Sabbath School for children. Adults’ conversations about religion. All the information I absorbed in childhood helped me sketch an image of Jesus with one major flaw: it was rendered in far too many shades of grey.

Life is a stage that we enter without a script, although we are constantly influenced by forces of varying visibility: social, educational, religious, economic, and political.

You really don't realize what your thoughts about God are until you have nothing left but the conviction expressed in the book of the prophet Jeremiah: My Father, my friend from my youth (Jeremiah 3:4).

To nothing else is the name of God so often linked in our human discourse as to suffering and deliverance. This locus is a huge and complicated intersection of our existence.

How can we protect ourselves against expecting too much of our friendships? Can we do something to prepare for the disappointment? And what does one do to deal with it?

When you discover that the only thing you have left is faith in God, you fervently wish that your faith doesn't end up poisoning your soul.

More than three decades have passed since the horrific genocide in Rwanda. Amid the outburst of murderous rage, there were people—both Africans and foreigners—who stood in the way of the hatred and bloodshed.

Lawyer Kent Hansen is under no obligation to write about God. It is not part of his job as Head of the Legal Department at Loma Linda University in California. No, he speaks and writes because he was found by God, because he is passionate about Jesus Christ and because he is convinced that anyone can live their faith as a vibrant, authentic...

As a believer—for present purposes, defined simply as one who believes—I have often wondered what and how I would believe differently had I been born into a family and culture with different beliefs. Obviously, I believe what I believe because I believe it to include truth, but would I have believed in this same truth if I had not been raised and taught...

Jeddah is different, at least according to its city motto. This Saudi Arabian port city on the Red Sea is home to more than 4 million people and is a gateway to Mecca: the holiest city in Islam. Millions of pilgrims come through Jeddah to visit Mecca, some 65 kilometres to the east, and Medina, Islam’s second holiest city, 360km to the north.

As we know all too well, life can be hard. Even in the best of times, life can be hard. But now this, a pandemic? How are we to cope?

When I was in my mid-twenties, I attended a university in Brisbane, Australia, two hours from where I lived. I had a friend in the city who I’d sometimes stay with to avoid having to travel back and forth on back-to-back uni days.

"When I was little, I felt that God was with me, but now I feel so lonely! I wonder if God really was with me back then".